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On Friday, July 15 at 19:29 GMT, both bridges linking Turkey to Europe were closed to vehicular and pedestrian traffic. A few minutes later, military helicopters and fighter jets were patrolling the skies over Istanbul and Ankara. Shots rang out.

So began Turkey’s basket-case moment where a coup was suspected to be in progress, although as is normal in these cases accurate information was difficult to obtain.

Thankfully, many brave Turkish citizens posted the events unfolding before their eyes on their social media accounts and that’s how the world became informed about the attempted coup in Turkey. (Thank You for posting in English!)

Almost as quickly as it began it was over — with reports of 265 dead and thousands injured in clashes around the country.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Prime Minister Binali Yildirim have vowed to crack down on perpetrators, threatening to invoke the death penalty. (Which might cost Turkey it’s shot at EU membership if they follow through on that threat)

As of Tuesday, July 19, 2016 at 13:00 hrs GMT, Turkey submitted a formal extradition request to the United States for cleric Fethullah Gülen, the supposed mastermind behind the Turkish coup. Gülen who was once one of Erdogan’s closest allies now lives in Pennsylvania and opposes the direction President Erdogan has taken the country (and let’s be honest, he probably wouldn’t mind becoming President of Turkey himself)

President Erdogan has indicated will hand over files to the United States government supporting his contention that Mr. Gülen is the mastermind behind the July 15th coup attempt.

How convincing these files are is anyone’s guess. But someone, somewhere, initiated this coup.

But until the evidence is heard and adjudicated by a legal court, it’s all hearsay and people shouldn’t rush to judgement until the facts become available.

LEGAL PRECEDENT

What will happen and what should happen, are two different things.

What should happen is that Turkey’s government should file the case with the International Criminal Court and leave it at that. The Turkish government could offer to reimburse the court for the full costs of the investigation, and make available Turkish officials who have relevant information. And whatever their ruling, President Erdogan and the Turkish government should thenceforth abide by that ruling.

As Fethullah Gülen was residing in the United States during the coup attempt, and therefore his purported crimes didn’t occur while he was inside Turkey, an international court is the ethical way to deal with this case.

Hypothetically, had he been masterminding the coup attempt from inside Turkey, it would be a much different matter. It would then be a matter for the Turkish justice system, and in that situation no other country would have any business telling Turkey how to conduct it’s internal affairs. (Although ‘fair comment’ about the case is to be expected and even welcomed)

But no, cleric Fethullah Gülen was living in a different country and is apparently involved in a long-running clash for power with the presently-serving President of Turkey.

How impartial can we expect a Turkish court to be in such a case?

Two factions are fighting for supremacy in Turkey, one of them (Recep Erdogan) won the last election with 52% of the vote, while the other (Fethullah Gülen) fled to the U.S. some years ago — yet still enjoys some level of support among the Turkish population.

At this point, the hostility between the two men is palpable and it looks like reconciliation between the two is highly unlikely, which points to a longer-term lack of vision and a lack of commitment to Turkey’s people on both sides of the argument.

It’s fair to say that Recep Erdogan has worked to improve the lot of Turkish citizens while in office, serving multiple terms as Prime Minister and President of Turkey.

And it’s also fair to say that much that could’ve gone wrong, didn’t… due to Erdogan’s deft handling of the multiple (and huge) challenges faced by his country in recent years.

All in all, President Erdogan has done well once everything is factored-in; At least an 8-out-10 score on the proverbial leadership scale.

Which leads some observers to conclude that July 2016 would be the most unlikely and inopportune moment for an experienced political operator and religious figure like Fethullah Gülen to pull the trigger on a Turkish coup.

There is no doubt, someone, somewhere, initiated this putsch. Whether it turns out to be Mr. Gülen remains to be seen.

PART I – Guaranteed Basic Income

The Guaranteed Basic Income (GBI) or Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) plans that have been proposed in recent years that are designed to mitigate poverty — poverty that is mostly caused by higher unemployment due to economic downturn or from humans being replaced by robotics, or a combination of both — have been contrived as if they were made to fail the smell test for voters asked to vote on such initiatives.

For instance, the recent Swiss referendum asked Swiss citizens to vote on a Unconditional Basic Income equivalent to $30,300/yr for every citizen, working or not. How ludicrous! (Even I, a UBI supporter would’ve voted against that!)

Of course, all that extra income would be taxable and it would boost an individual’s income into a much higher tax bracket, and consequently, all Swiss taxpayers would pay more tax. However, in addition to automatically being bumped into a higher taxation bracket, the Swiss were looking at major percentage increases to their tax rate in order to afford that exorbitant UBI programme.

However, if such guaranteed income schemes are kept within a reasonable context it suddenly becomes much easier to afford.

Working people who earn any amount over the official poverty line in Canada (approx. $19,000/yr, depending if you live in a rural area or a city) might not require a Guaranteed Basic Income.

But for those senior citizens and disabled people who live under the poverty line, and for hundreds of thousands of Canadians whose jobs were shipped off to Asia (and we know those jobs are never coming back) whose unemployment insurance benefits have run out and are subsisting on various welfare programmes, all of these people now find themselves living far below the poverty line at $7320. per year in certain provinces.

And we wonder why we have homelessness, substance abuse, high property crime rates and higher policing, court, and incarceration costs.

Using the $19,000/yr poverty line threshold as it relates to guaranteed income schemes, we can see how GBI measures up with the real world. (Note: $19,000/year divided by 12 months = $1533/month)

It’s actually cheaper to pay a person $1533/month, than it is to incarcerate them at $6600/month. (The incarceration costs only average $80,000/yr in Canada — with federal prison inmates costing $113,880/yr. per inmate, and provincial prison inmates costing from $48,000/yr to $58,000/yr per inmate)

It’s also cheaper to pay a person $1533/month, than the common $1,000,000 per person (for example) property damage, policing costs, court costs, and incarceration costs, once all the disparate costs of one repeat offender are totalled up. (Some criminal investigations cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per month and may involve many officers and several government agencies)

It’s cheaper to pay a person $1533/month, than it is to hospitalize them in various Emergency Rooms each time they overdose on street drugs, or get hypothermia from sleeping outdoors.

ER costs are astronomical and range from $260. to $8120. per visit (and costs rise significantly if additional testing is required such as MRI, X-Rays, or if there are complications) and a substance abuser who lives on the street in a violent area might have many Hospital visits per month.

And particularly with vulnerable people like seniors or battered women with young children in tow, who subsist far below the poverty line, it is cheaper to pay a person $1533/month, than picking up the pieces afterward.

By rolling existing social programme spending from many different government departments into a GBI, much of the $1533/month GBI is already funded.

And by dramatically lowering property damage, policing costs, court costs, incarceration costs, and Emergency Room and other healthcare costs, a reasonable GBI can facilitate huge net savings for any jurisdiction.

Guaranteed Basic Income: Dauphin, Manitoba was the site of the Mincome Project in the 1970s. Canada’s policy context concerning basic income may be surprising for some people. The famous Mincome experiment ended abruptly due to a newly-elected government and not due to any failings of the programme; it’s only recently that we’ve learned about the wide extent of its benefits. Photo Dauphin Economic Development on Facebook

PART II

That said; There is nothing that a national (and effective) job-sharing scheme can’t fix in regards to high unemployment levels, regardless of how high the unemployment rate soars.

I’m a firm proponent of GBI or UBI and I will strongly support it, in the absence of an effective job-sharing programme — which should be our highest priority.

In Sweden, they have mandatory job-sharing. Which means that by law, every worker must work for a minimum of 6 months per year.

That’s right, everyone who is not a student, not retired, not on maternity/paternity leave, or not disabled, is classed as a worker and must work a minimum of 6 months per year.

Sometimes, two people share the same job their entire career. Don’t forget that in Sweden, people are mostly employed. It’s the rare person who doesn’t work full time, at least 11 months of the year.

Which means that the unemployment rate among workers would sit at virtually zero percent, EXCEPT for those people who’ve just graduated and are looking for work, or homemakers who’ve just re-entered the job market, or those who’ve relocated with a spouse to a different city in Sweden. (The historical unemployment rate in Sweden is 2.5% which neatly matches-up with my above statement)

In Sweden, there are two unemployment insurance (UI) schemes:

One is the government scheme which pays unemployed workers 66% of their normal salary (most countries have this basic UI setup)

The other is a public/private insurer that workers can voluntarily pay into that allows them to purchase additional unemployment insurance coverage.

Both the government unemployment insurance scheme and the public/private unemployment insurance scheme are money-makers! (And why not?)

For the equivalent of only one or two pennies per dollar earned, workers can purchase the additional unemployment insurance from the public/private insurer — so that during their layoff they receive the normal 66% of their salary from the government unemployment insurance scheme — but also receive up to 33% of their normal salary from the public/private unemployment insurance scheme.

When Swedes get a layoff notice, it’s not a traumatic event in their lives.

From the first day of layoff, they’re on a fully-funded unemployment insurance program that pays them up to 99% of their normal wages, and with no application process nor waiting period. It’s automatic.

It depends upon how much additional coverage they’ve purchased, most people only purchase an additional 24% coverage, giving them 66% + 24% = 90% of their normal salary.

Why don’t they buy 33% coverage?

Because they no longer have commuting expenses, work clothing expenses, and other work-related expenses. It’s actually a net benefit to purchase only 24% coverage. But it’s completely their call to purchase any amount of public/private insurance that they want.

Companies in Sweden like this arrangement as they always have a large pool of fully-trained workers from which to choose.

Also, in the case of an ill or injured worker, Swedish companies simply call-in one of their unemployeds to fill-in for the injured worker — at full pay.

Workers gladly accept this, as not only do they continue to receive their unemployment insurance benefits (both the government UI which is paid monthly and the public/private UI which is paid weekly) but they also get the daily wage from the employer for as many days as they’re required to fill-in for the injured worker.

Yes. As you might expect, there’s a waiting list! The most senior people are at the top of the ‘Do Call’ List, whenever another employee has time away from work for illness.

It’s a great thing for companies, for workers, and for those trying to raise young families in uncertain economic times.

In Sweden, if you’re a worker, you’re covered! No matter what.

Either you’re at work getting 100% of your normal salary — or you’re at home getting (typically) 90% of your salary. There is no ‘other’ category for workers in Sweden.

And throughout your entire career, you will be in one of those two categories.

If you think that workers and their families like that system, you should interview the companies. They like it even more.

Summary

Which approach do you favour?

Do you think that people should be saved from poverty via (1) a GBI system or (2) do you think that an efficient job-sharing programme with both government and public/private unemployment insurance is the answer?

“The measure of a society is found in how they treat their weakest and most helpless citizens.” — former President of the United States, Jimmy Carter

And in the UK, the vote on that was June 23rd. The result is there for all the world to see.

Had a mentally disturbed man not gunned down MP Jo Cox, the Brexit win might’ve been 70 percent.

Regardless, 52 percent of Britons said EU membership isn’t working for them, in one way or another.

And this is the whole point; If you’re a 1-percenter or an elite, the EU is a truly wonderful place to live. I’d have to call it an almost ‘unparalleled’ existence, living in historic Europe, beautiful Europe, a continent full of amazing cultures and such technological prowess and so much more(!) that it would take a year-long video presentation just to cover the basics.

But if you’re a ‘working stiff’ in the EU, it’s not so good.

OF COURSE, the economic problems in the EU and other Western nations, are globalization-induced. It’s so apparent it’s beyond all argument.

Fully half of the Brexiters angst could be traced or blamed on the follow-on effects of globalization.

That doesn’t give the EU governance architecture a ‘free pass’ however — on the contrary — the EU is one of the main ‘pushers’ of the globalization drug, and with that (good) drug come the (negative) side-effects;

Which are; the offshoring of jobs, higher unemployment, more competition for jobs, massive immigration / ghettoization, higher crime rates, higher societal costs (including, but not limited to; policing, court, incarceration, property damage, and intangibles like ‘how safe’ citizens feel in their own city) also higher traffic flows in airports / shipping ports / highways / and in cities — all of which suddenly require massive upgrades to handle the increased traffic. And so much more than that short list.

I’m the first to agree that the thing we call globalization is a truly wonderful and great thing! But the job is only half-done.

Globalization has created a permanent class of poor people (whose jobs were shipped to Asia, and many remaining jobs were taken by economic immigrants) a situation which has yet to be properly addressed in the EU.

When a society isn’t working for 2/5ths of the citizens, it isn’t working. Period. Full stop. Until the day it’s rectified.

And that’s what I’m hoping for. I’m waiting for the mandarins in Brussels (who can’t be fired by ‘The People’ because they’re unelected) to begin to address the shortcomings of their governance architecture — of which globalization is a major platform.

They should’ve been proactive all along, instead of spending hundreds of thousands of person-hours on what ingredients bread may, or may not have. (How ‘Soviet’ of them) I hear they’re working on the rules for shoe factories next week.

It’s difficult to believe that some people can’t understand how Britons could vote for Brexit.

Either the EU must begin holding EU-wide elections for their highest officials (to allow ‘The People’ a chance to ‘vent’ when things aren’t going well) instead of choosing to ‘_exit’ the EU,

OR

the unelected mandarins must begin to address the negative aspects of globalization for the bottom two economic quintiles (2/5ths) of the EU’s citizenry.

Otherwise, the whole thing will eventually fail — with nations continuing to join the EU, but with more leaving than joining.

Were a similar referendum to the UK referendum held in every EU nation next week, I’d expect that 52 percent (or more) of EU citizens would vote to ‘_exit’ the European Union.

And that would be a crying shame. But it wouldn’t stop it from occurring.

There are few who support the European project as sincerely as I, but there comes a time when we must be candid about successes (many) and failures (only two; But causing two other failures, for a grand total of four failures) and with more failures likely.

The failure to address the;(1) negative aspects of globalization, is caused by;(2) a democratic deficit in Brussels, which caused;(3) Swiss citizens to reject EU membership in 2014, and;(4) British citizens to Brexit in 2016.

Stay tuned for more such failures — and all of it will be on account of the democratic deficit of the eurocrats in Brussels and their failure to address the negative aspects of globalization.